Posted by:
randyj
(
)
Date: May 31, 2015 01:07PM
One guy, Eric Kettunen, who has responded in this thread, founded this website and bulletin board. He has no "organization" except for a few volunteer moderators. Shortly after Eric founded the site, another Ex-Mormon tried to wrest control of it in order to make it a for-profit venture. Eric refused to do any of that. As other posters noted, the only money Eric asks for is donations to keep the site running.
In case you aren't aware---over the years, several Mormon apologists from FARMS, FAIR, and other pro-Mormon interests have come onto this BB for the purpose of refuting/discrediting it, or to prevent Mormons from reading and learning from it. Among those apologists are Daniel Peterson, Allen Wyatt, Jeff Lindsay, Michael Ash, and Van Hale. Those guys are some of the most vocal Mopologists on the planet. Some of them have commented about RFM elsewhere on the internet, in blogs and articles. They wouldn't bother coming to RFM if they didn't think it was a threat to the church's fortunes.
A lot of the issues discussed here on a regular basis have helped to form the foundations of websites such as Deconstructor's
http://www.i4m.com/think/ , Mormonthink, and cesletter.com. We regularly hear from posters, and from talk all over the internet, that websites like those are causing thousands of Mormons to leave the church. It's a safe bet to assume that one of the big reasons why the church has published their recent issues on controversial topics is because so many Mormons, such as those in the "Swedish rescue," are learning the truth about church history and doctrine from websites like RFM. We have heard anecdotal reports that even some of the GAs are reading on these sites and are having their own doubts about the church because of it.
My point being, this website is VERY influential, and is doing big-time damage to the church. That's pretty significant in light of the fact that Eric started this whole thing about 19 years ago just to share his own experiences with the church and to give other people a forum to share theirs as well. This website wasn't founded to make money or to combine forces with other religions; it was designed to do exactly what it is doing.